The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz - A Review

A few years ago I got the complete works of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle for Christmas and spent a pleasurable few weeks reading through them all.There was even included a short novel of stories about Sherlock Holmes that had been done by other authors. They were ok but I can't say I was ever really struck by them. They just didn't seem to live up to the standard that had previous been set. So when I learned that Anthony Horowitz was planning to write a novel about the famous detective himself I was conflicted yet hopeful. If anyone could carry on the work of Conan Doyle it was he.

And having just finished the book I find that it has lived up to expectations. The general plot is that Watson is nearing the end of his life and before he goes has decided to write out one case of Holmes' that never made it to print. However the country is at war (presumably the Second World War) and the scandal that publishing the case might cause would destabilise the government at precisely the wrong time. So once he finishes he will order the manuscript to be sealed away for the next hundred or so years, when society might be more able to cope with the scandal. The case was, naturally, the House of Silk. 

Now the real trouble here was to manage to create a scandal that really could have plausibly caused such shock, and I believe that Horowitz has managed to do that. The path to this conclusion is full of all we know and love about Holmes. In fact it really is all here, from the deducing of peoples professions to the Baker Street Irregulars. Even Moriarty makes an appearance. I might criticise it as trying to shove a lot of familiar items in to make us recognise and have a wave of nostalgia bear us through some parts of the story were it not all subtly woven into the plot in a way that made its inclusion natural and indeed necessary. Even through it was a good deal longer than all the other books, make no mistake; this was a Holmes novel in the best spirit of the thing.

However it wasn't perfect. My main problem with it was the trouble I had trying to place it on the timeline. It seemed to come at quiet a late point in Holmes and Watson's acquaintance and yet Moriarty is still on the scene. Though that might just be because it has been awhile since I read the originals. There was quite a lot of nostalgia used; Watson referring to previous cases a lot more than I remember him doing before. 

But It is a good book. A solid book. 

And a very entertaining read. I rate it at an eight out of ten and recommend that you buy it immediately. And here's the Amazon link so that you may do so.

Angel by James Patterson - A Review

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why do I keep reading books by this author when they drive me to distraction? Well I’ll get on to that later but in the meantime, as you might have guessed, I've got another James Patterson novel to review. This time it’s ‘Angel,’ the seventh in his Maximum Ride series.

Now I’m not entirely unbiased in this review. I didn’t come to this book expecting nothing of it. I firmly believe that the series should have stopped at the third book, ‘Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports.’ I don’t think that it should have continued past that.

And yet here we are. At number seven.

Well let’s take a look at it then.

First off the beginning is a bit naff. James Patterson’s standard opening for this series seems to be, ‘They were shot at. Chaos ensues.’ This is itself stupid but when the attack on them comes after getting in a plane with those who were trying to kill one of them last book you start banging your head off the wall. It is made borderline plausible later on but it’s still pretty dumb.

Then you have the main villains in the book. Again, there usually doesn’t seem much point to them after the third book, apart from a few that have just been randomly tacked on. But these ones really take the biscuit. For one thing they pick the sublimely subtle name of ‘The Doomsday Group,’ which was so under the radar that Fang decided that they were the enemy after seeing them on the Evening News. This group appear to worship Maximum Ride and all other mutations, which is odd considering they appear to try and kill them in the first fifty pages.

And then you have the style of writing. James Patterson seems to be trying to leave every chapter on a cliff-hanger. Which is fine in principle but when your chapters are only two pages or so long it kind of leaves everything a bit highly strung. And also some of the methods used to do this are out of place and unexplained. Bombs go off that seem to have no purpose what-so-ever. They get attacked by random people. More random people appear who might have some significance but then again might not. And so on.

Finally the ending. Is annoying. Period. It doesn’t make sense for one thing. The whole scheme sort of comes together but is nowhere near as big as expected. The continuality seems to go. At one point I swear that someone pops out of a hole, hits a few bad guys then jumps down the hole again. And more pointless drama.

So that’s the annoying things about it. Let’s look at what it does well.

Ok, the romance and the fighting.

Maximum Ride has always had fighting in it, with the Flock seeming to be able to take out literally hundreds of foes at a time. Happily this time is doesn’t seem to be quite so ridiculous and what fights there were had been done well. So that’s a point in its favour. And then the romance. Frankly this is what I usually get the books for anyway. Fang, the previous book, ended with such a sweet letter that it completely made up for all the other discrepancies that that book had had. So I was looking for a follow up in this book.

Did I get it? Sort of.

There was a fair bit of the soppy stuff in it but it seemed more muddled and half hearted. One of the problems I’ve had reading these books is that it seems very of the cliché American Teenager. Lots of high-fives and ‘dude!’s. That isn’t really anyone I know so I can’t really relate to it. So while the relationship stuff was alright it wasn’t great. Which kind of summarises the whole book really.

And yet, when the final one comes out in February I’m still going to buy it. Why?

Because I do actually like the premise. I like a lot of what goes into the books. I don’t think they’re very well done and they make me as annoyed as anything but in parts they’re still enjoyable to read. So I’m giving this a five out of ten and hoping that it gets better for the finale and that James Patterson clears up some of the many, many loose ends that he’s left lying around.

And if you want to buy the book, here’s the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maximum-Ride-Angel-James-Patterson/dp/1846054664/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325203974&sr=1-4
If you want to see my more off the cuff review then click this link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibenoRw5lgM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

I survived. Somehow

So it's now December and NaNoWriMo is now over. And I made it, if only just. Still I'm proud of what I achieved. It was, however, very last minute. As you can see if the picture that will hopefully be included in this post.

Anyway, that's what I've been doing for the past month. Now let's look at the next one.
I'm going to focus primarily on my studies as there's a very real danger that I might not make it into university. And I want to make it to uni, so that I can get some good degrees and therefore get a job that'll let me do writing for a living. As I'm basically bone-idle lazy this means I'll have to take a good look at how I use my time and shape up quite a lot. This means that I probably won't be able to go back to the whole 'write-one-story-per-week' thing.
However I don't want to let this blog just die. I enjoy it too much. So I'm going to be working on something else for it and should have two of these things up for Christmas. Hopefully.
If I don't get kicked out of school first.